The Job

What does a day in the life of the Angel of Death look like?

The Job

Ryan Austin Fernandez

 

It breaks my heart every time I do my job. Why God picked me to do this, I don’t know. I just trust His plan and I know I’m the best person… or angel… for this job.

Imagine this: you can be anyone; act like anyone; be like anyone, to be a comfort. God gives you a name. You can’t ask why. You can’t say no. So you pick a persona, an act, a part to play, and you get to work.

The name you’re given is a plain woman with a husband and two kids. She’s not too happy with her life. She’s a preschool teacher, thinking about switching careers. She’s a bit of a b***h, but hey, we all are. Her husband seems bored with life. Her kids are acting up. She’s miserable.

So you take the form of a small boy. You go to her school’s playground in my small boy body and start crying, hoping she’ll notice. Heh, who are you kidding? God gave me powers. No matter what disguise you put on, they always notice. That’s your unique quality. Getting them to notice isn’t the job. That’s not the hard part.

The hard part is the talk.

So this woman approaches you in a comforting tone, smiling at you and offering you a lollipop. The other kids in the playground begin to stare, then they get bored and keep playing.

“Don’t you have friends in your class, li’l fella?” she asks.

“No. They don’t have room for me,” you reply

I respect actors. Their job is hard. What you do is similar, but God’s powers make it so my mark never notices if you slip up. Consider it your super power.

“Well I can be your friend for now. Who’s the teacher in your class? Maybe I can ask them to help you out?”

“It’s Mrs. Arnold but she’s nice. She tries to help but the other kids just don’t want to be my friend.”

I hate it when my mark is married. That usually means I need to be either younger or older than them to ease them in. Being younger usually means being more naïve.

I mean being naïve is easier, but if you’ve been through as much as I have, it just feels really unnatural. Anyway, you’re in trouble. The bell rings. S**t, it’s too late.

“You should get to class.”

You bring out the crocodile tears.

“Ma’am. Could you maybe stay with me awhile here for a bit longer? I just want to be alone for a while.”

“Sure, dear. Let me tell your teacher, then we can talk as long as you want.”

I wonder whether she has a class of her own… not that it matters, considering her name came up…

She goes off to Mrs. Arnold and tell her she’ll talk to me awhile. She comes back and sits beside me at the edge of the sandbox.

“So what should we do, umm… what’s your name?”

You say your name. While I’m asking you to imagine this scenario, at the risk of ruining your immersion, let’s say your name is Daryl. I usually pick the name Daryl or Loralie coz I’m cute and I like to wear my job on my sleeve, but since you’re a young boy in a preschool somewhere sometime, you go with Daryl.

“Daryl… what do you want to do?”

“I know,” you say. “Why don’t we get to know each other? You tell me a secret and I’ll tell you mine.”

In my playbook, this is an easy one.

“Okay. I start?”

You nod.

“Well… I’m thinking of changing jobs.”

“To what?”

“Maybe teach high school. I don’t know. I’m still thinking.”

Why you bother to get to know them, I’ll never know… but hey… I’m the one telling you to imagine one of my scenarios.

“How about you? What’s your secret?”

Okay. Here it goes. Moment of truth.

“I’m the angel of death.”

“Are you kidding now? That’s not fair. I shared a real secret. You can’t just joke around.”

“I’m not kidding, Mrs. Bailey. I know you’re unhappy in your marriage. I know your kids ignore you. I know you’re miserable.”

The look on her face in indescribable. She begins to cry.

“No. This can’t be true. I refuse to believe it. I can’t die. I’m still trying to make my dreams come true.”

“Well, God seems to think in your forty-three years, you’ve fulfilled your purpose.”

Sometimes you’re really bad at your job.

Mrs. Bailey thrashes and tries to escape. This is the fun part of your day. You can teleport to follow her around… so you do.

She gets in her car. You pop in her backseat with the snap of a finger.

“If you drive away, you are fulfilling the inevitable, Mrs. Bailey.”

“If this is real, I have to say goodbye to my family. Please let me do that.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bailey, but we’re on borrowed time.”

As Mrs. Bailey drives towards the intersection that eventually kills her with her suddenly being cut off by a drunk driver, you gently grab her arm and transport her to her limbo.

By the way, that drunk driver? Any day now God’s going to give you his name and this entire thing starts all over again… or did he already give you his name? You always seem to forget a job once you’re done. You live the moment completely, and once the job is done, all that’s left are emotions.

From where you’re sitting, it’s just you and Mrs. Bailey driving home, as if she never got hit. Stage one is contact. Stage two is telling them you’re picking them up. This is stage three. Telling them they’re gone and that this is just a limbo to ease them in.

Mrs. Bailey steps out and rushes into her house. She tries to talk to her husband but he ignores her. She embraces her children but they don’t feel it.

Okay, full disclosure, the first few hundred people God sent me to pick up, once we hit stage three, I actually let them interact with their projections of the people in their limbo, but they always took so long to move on. One man, had a wife, three kids, and thirteen grandkids, took fifteen limbo years to move on. After around pickup number eight-hundred and fifty-four, I tried making their loved ones unresponsive, and generally it makes them more willing to accept the fact. I’m not going to argue the philosophy of this situation, but I’m just telling you what gets the job done.

So you’re following Mrs. Bailey around as she desperately begs her family to notice her; to say goodbye properly.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bailey, but you’re dead. You died in the intersection.”

“But I drove all the way here. I’m here, not there, not in the hospital! I am here! I’m alive! There’s just something wrong with them! I am here!”

Mrs. Bailey tries to hug her children even more and you just sit there waiting for her to walk up to you to start bargaining.

Ahh… the five stages of grief. One time, I got bored, so I went to Elisabeth Kubler Ross’ house as a drunk man, and told her I was the angel of death. I told her I’ve seen people realize their dead millions of times and I told them they always did the same five things.

At first, they would deny the fact that they’re dead. “I’m not dead. I can’t be. I have so much to live for. You’re f*****g with me.” Yada yada yada. After one million times, this step gets kinda old, to be honest, but hey, God made you guys that way so I guess it’s the best way to deal with grief.

The next part is my favorite: bargaining. They would come up with the most ridiculous s**t just to stay alive. The funniest one would have to be this guy who was supposed to go to heaven for some reason but during bargaining, he offered the soul of his officemate instead so he got… well… reassigned to the other place. You humans get so creative, so I definitely look forward to this part the most.

Next comes anger. Stupid me and my emotions. I should be used to this by now, but this part always sends chills down my spine. The mark would relentlessly yell and call me names and say it’s not fair. God must think I have nerves of steel to face this part. Thanks, God, for believing in me.

Mrs. Bailey starts acting out, yelling that she could have done so much more with her life. She starts saying you’re the shittiest angel and that if anyone deserves to rot in hell, it’s me. We don’t reassign people for the harsh s**t they say during this part… as much as I’m tempted to. If God sent me to tell me I was to die, I wouldn’t be so peachy either.

Fourth is depression. This is my least favorite part. You see, in stage one, I try to build a rapport with my mark as much as possible. This is solely for this phase. When they sink into this depression, I rely on the rapport I built before I dropped my secret to get them through it. This stage is the bulk of my job. When I said the talk is the hard part of the job, what I meant to say was if I screwed up the talk, this part would be harder for both of us. I mean usually it means they hate me even though I try to love every mark I get, but even when I do the talk well, they end up hating me during this part. When I get it right though, this part doesn’t take so long.

Mrs. Bailey sat down near the windowsill and stared out the window. You went to her and gave her a hug.

“I know it’s hard, but you take as long as you want. I’ll be right here with you,” you say.

And now, you’ve fallen for another human.

Never romantically. That never happens. But you just adore God’s creatures and whenever they’re stuck in the pit of despair, it’s part of your job to promise you’ll always be there with them until they’re ready.

Then comes acceptance. Time for both of you to say goodbye. The sign of a job well done. The mark will tell you they’re ready and all you have to do is bring them home, whether it’s the good place or the bad place.

So after three days, Mrs. Bailey gets up from the windowsill and walks up to you, sitting at the bottom of her staircase. She extends an arm.

“I’m ready to go, Daryl.”

You stand up, and, each time they say they’re ready, you give them your killer smile.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

“Wait one second.”

She goes to her kids and hugs them, a one-sided hug, for the last time. She kisses her husband on the forehead and goes back to you.

“Let’s go.”

You lead her to the front door, where eternal life awaits.

That’s my life. What you just pictured: that’s what I do every single moment of my life.

I love my job and I hate it.

I love it because of every person I meet… every beautiful human being I get to know.

And I hate it for every heart I break… for every soul I cast into despair.

But only I could do it. This is the job I’m meant to do.